Website owners and people in marketing are constantly looking for new promotional opportunities. It’s a part of the job to ensure high visibility on the internet. However, with each new algorithm change, each new feature, the optimization tends to bring more confusion. Especially to those new in the marketing field. Now, we have search results spiced up with additional features, and efforts to remain on top are not straightforward anymore. Fortunately, changes are not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary. With new features like Google snippets come the means to establish a more versatile competitive environment. No matter the industry your business belongs to, you are given additional resources to win the desirable high-ranking positions. But first, it requires a bit of research about how to get a good ranking in Google’s featured snippets so you can answer your potential customers’ needs the right way.
Google’s Featured Snippets – the right way
Google’s featured snippets have multiple purposes. They allow people to easily get brief information from relevant sources without even clicking on the link. On the other side, this gives businesses an additional chance to drive traffic, improve conversion rates, and generally remain competitive. For a moving industry, this increase in exposure means a lot. With so many established websites out there, it can be hard to make progress in organic search results. However, featured snippets allow you to skip a bit of effort and display above top positions. Every moving company marketing should utilize this opportunity to improve the number of potential customers.
What are Google’s featured snippets?
When you look at some search results, you may notice a block of the content above the top results. This “snippet” usually provides a direct, brief answer to the search query. Since it’s above organic search, people usually refer to it as the “position zero”.
Snippets have high visibility and click-through rates because they also take a lot of space. And they usually, but not necessarily, show when you formulate your query as a question. Google’s featured snippets display information from one of the websites that are already ranked on the first page. But it doesn’t have to be in the #1 position. In general, we have three main types of featured snippets on Google:
- Paragraphs – the most popular option, gives the answer in a paragraph style. Basically, it’s a block of text, often accompanied by an image.
- Lists – displays an answer in the list format, and is usually looking like a step-by-step explanation.
- Tables – the answer displays information in tables. Usually a well-structured comparison of products, prices, characteristics, etc.
The most useful attribute of featured snippets is that it allows users to quickly find answers. At the first glance, they can decide if that is what they are looking for, or they need to formulate their query differently.
How to optimize for potential ranking in Google’s Featured Snippets
Your moving business can use different ways to advertise online, so here is the list of tips about how to optimize your website content for Google’s featured snippets:
- Question-type queries and keywords
- Research your industry competitors
- Get help from Google search engine
- Format your content properly
- Create a “How-to” or “Q&A” section on your website
- Include high-quality visuals
1. Question-type queries and keywords
To get your website pages to rank on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), keyword research is mandatory. This also applies to the situation when you want to rank for Google’s featured snippets. Besides traditional keyword research, this time, you need to focus on question-type queries. The point is to find what your potential customers are usually asking for, and provide the right and structured answer. Usually, question queries include terms like:
- How to…
- What is…
- How does…
- Why…
- The best…
- Top…
- and other similarities
Basically, you can provide the list containing brief information followed by a more detailed explanation for each list item below. If you group the information in your content properly, you have the chance to show it in Google’s featured snippets.
2. Research your industry competitors
When deciding what content to create and which keywords to use, exploring what competitors are doing can be helpful. If you are noticing your competitor often shows in featured snippets, they probably have an excellent optimization in place. Simply find the piece of content they rank this way and compare it you your own website pages.
One way to win ranking in featured snippets is to create the same content, just way better.
Another option is to find what they are missing and focus your effort there. If anything, it will be easier than the first option. However, don’t forget that they might be using the same tactics themselves.
3. Get help from Google search engine
Another way to find potentially efficient topics is to use the Google search engine. You can start typing the question and see what auto-complete options it’s offering. This way you will find out what, on average, your potential audience is looking for the most. In other words, you can place yourself in their position and try to think like a customer. The better you understand users’ needs and priorities the better content you will create.
4. Format your content properly
Now, let’s say you have the idea and a considerable amount of content to present. However, nothing will work if you don’t properly structure your content. This includes everything from paragraphs arrangement to headers. It’s important to use the right heading-subheading structure and follow its hierarchy, especially if you aim at featured snippets. Sorting facts in chronological order is a great way to provide ease of use and improve user experience in general. But, it’s also useful when Google evaluates your content for featured snippets.
In addition, you might want to limit your essential paragraphs to around 50 words. According to some researches, the most common number of words in featured snippets is between 40 and 50. Maybe a bit more.
5. Create a “How-to” or “Q&A” section on your website
Creating separate pages that aim at Google’s featured snippets ranking can be a great solution as well. Most service providers start with creating a list of solutions to different problems. But it quickly expands to more appropriate “Questions & Answers” sections on your website. Also, when giving useful tips to your visitors, you have two options:
- Either write content that contains “How to” in their topics. Similarly and in great connection with your keywords.
- Or, create a completely separate “How to” section that deals with the most common problems.
Despite the choice, all these options can be an efficient method to provide more details about your services, products, to make comparisons, and others.
6. Include high-quality visuals
Finally, high-quality visual material can also be criteria for ranking on Google’s featured snippets. Have you noticed that many times you have been seeing YouTube videos in featured snippets? It’s not always only the text and the image. Google is well aware that users prefer visualized over other sources of information. Many companies are using this fact and already are creating channels with high-quality visual presentations. In general, it can be an overall “get to know us” video, or an explanation of services. Even having your teams in action, followed by an explanation of specific steps, can be quite useful.
Sometimes, keeping up with all the marketing trends can be overwhelming. But once you get into the core, it seems like the rest is a bit easier. Features like Google’s featured snippets are here to stay, and your business can only benefit from them. Even if you are not among the top three results in SERPs, this option gives you a chance to stay equally competitive. Besides general SEO optimization, it never hurts to try additional means if it’s going to help your business grow.
